SOLON ROBINSON, 1849 277 



Owing to this innate protecting principle, the tyrant 

 is made to gnaw a file — and the cruel master heaps coals 

 of fire upon his own head; and the avaricious one loses 

 the gold that he vainly attempts to compel his slave to 

 earn by excessive toil. 



It is true that some men abuse and harshly treat their 

 slaves. So do some men abuse their wives and children 

 and apprentices and horses and cattle. But I am sorry 

 to say that I am forced to believe the latter class more 

 numerous than the former. 



Experience has long since taught masters, that every 

 attempt to force a slave beyond the limit that he fixes 

 himself as a sufficient amount of labor to render his mas- 

 ter, instead of extorting more work, only tends to make 

 him unprofitable, unmanageable, a vexation and a curse. 

 If you protract his regular hours of labor, his movements 

 become proportionably slower; and this is not the effect 

 of long habit acquired in slavery, as is proved by the 

 fact that on his first introduction from Africa, he pos- 

 sesses the same principle. Every stranger is always 

 struck, on visiting a slave country, with the characteristic 

 slow movements of this people under all circumstances. 

 Many a hungry traveler, from a non-slaveholding coun- 

 try, has cursed this slow movement while impatiently 

 waiting two tedious hours for a negro cook to prepare a 

 meal, which at last would be found to consist of nothing 

 requiring such a length of time; as the whole intermi- 

 nable, never-changing bill of fare, would consist of coffee, 

 cornbread and bacon. 



Upon a plantation where they are universally well 

 treated, they can, by a promise of rewards, be induced to 

 quicken their speed in a busy time; but under a system 

 of bad treatment and attempted force, they will at such 

 a time slacken their speed and perform their work in a 

 more careless and slovenly manner — fixing generally 

 upon the most busy time, or pressing emergency, to do 

 so. Attempt to force them with the lash when in this 

 mood, and you will fail, for it has no terrors for them — 



